Cramblett and Reed’s Store was one of the centers of community life in Tappan in the first decades of the 20th century.

The store, located in a two-story building on the main street of town, was heated by an old coal stove and was a great gathering place for residents, especially in the evening and during bad weather. Sometimes the kids in town would get to wrestling in the store. One time, some of the young people fell through the candy case and broke the glass. The glass was never repaired.

The business supplied all of the needs of residents in Tappan and the surrounding countryside. It sold bananas on the stem, which hung from a hook in the store; machinery parts; and farm machinery. The store had two gas pumps in front and a kerosene pump in the back.

The store also took butter, chicken and eggs in trade. “The butter would pile up until it got old,” a former owner, the late Earl Reed of Uhrichsville, once recalled. “We packed it up in tubs and shipped it to Pittsburgh.”

The store also operated a huckster route, where Reed would take groceries out to the farmers in the area and purchase produce in return. Reed bought an old school bus to use on the route. His route was 25 to 30 miles long — east to Cadiz, then west to Stillwater by way of Weaver’s Run, and then back to Tappan.

The store had a bread box out front, and Quimby’s Bakery in Uhrichsville would deliver 60 loaves of bread every day at 6 a.m., leaving it in the bread box. Reed would then take the bread out on the route, and would often sell 12 loaves to a single family.

“We had boys playing at the store, and we would put the boys in the bread box to make them behave,” he recalled.

The building was erected by John J. Barnes in 1887. In August 1888, it became the property of the firm of Case & Taylor.

William E. Case owned six stores in eastern Ohio. David L. Taylor, his son-in-law, moved to Tappan to operate the business.

A business directory that appeared in the Cadiz Republican in 1899 boasted that the store could meet all the needs of farmers in the neighborhood.

“Messrs. Case & Taylor will clothe him and his family, feed them, furnish their house, supply all necessary hardware for the new house or barn and all implements and machinery from seed time to harvest, and this includes the well-known ‘McCormick’ and the ‘Milwaukee’ reapers and binders,” the paper said.

Taylor operated the store until he sold it to David Cramblett and Charles C. Rea on Feb. 15, 1917. In 1923, Cramblett’s son-in-law, Earl Reed, purchased Rea’s share of the business.

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Reed lived in Tappan until 1935, when the dam was being built. He then moved back to Tappan in 1938 to finish up the store business, living there until 1941. In 1945, Bert Henry of Harrison County purchased the store and David Cramblett’s old house and operated the store for several years.

Jon Baker is reporter for The Times-Reporter. He can be reached via email at jon.baker@timesreporter.com.